Resilient Insights for Work & Life

Let me first define what a resilient work relationship looks like. It is not someone who stays in the organization forever. The truth of the matter is
people can “stay” but their minds and spirits are gone. Their bodies are present, but they are absentee landlords!

Hyper-speed and hypertension. Connectivity 24/7. Disruption upon disruption. Technology that overturns the latest and the greatest. The list is endless
as workers at all levels face an array of demands. According to my colleague, Bill Jensen, 47% of jobs
will disappear in the next 25 years which means workers at all levels will face a rethinking and retooling of what “work” really means.

Just this past week, I’ve been booked to speak about disruption and resiliency at an international women’s conference in Dublin, at a leadership forum
for Colorado School of Mines, and at a large healthcare network involved in a merger. Disruption is on everyone’s mind.

A recent study published in the journal, Science shows that it does. Authors Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral studied 126,000 twitter chains involving
three million people. What they found was that falsehoods were 70% more likely to be retweeted than factual information.

Resiliency is not a one-time skill to be pulled out in times of crisis. Many of you know I coined the word presilience ™ for preemptive resilience.
In short, resilience is a life skill that can and must be developed and nurtured beginning with our children. I asked colleagues Karin Hurt and David
Dye, owners of Let’s Grow Leaders, to write how lessons with children can be applied to adults. They have also created a wonderful resiliency book
for children. Consider getting it if you have youngsters in your life.

Perhaps you remember this modern-day hero: In 2009, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger made a water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River off
Manhattan after the plane was disabled by striking a flock of Canada geese immediately after takeoff; all 155 people aboard survived. The survival
of all people was remarkable in aviation history.

A resilient, engaged workforce needs to constantly be learning and growing to stay ahead of the competition. However, it’s easy to shrug off learning when
faced with limited time and budget constraints.Time to stop that old-school thinking. There are many options for learning that can meet the needs of
a team. Here are five:

Resilient people are best able to deal with the demands placed on them, to “roll with the punches” and to cope under pressure. We all know the paradox
of “too much to do and too little time”. When coupled with constant changes, looming deadlines, masses of email, and juggling a life outside of work,
resiliency might seem like a “when-you-wish-upon-a-star” phenomenon.

According to a study released last year by the American Psychological Association, changes at work and uncertainty are linked to employee stress, distrust,
and an intent to quit. The APA’s Work and Well-being Study reported that fully 50% of Americans say they have been impacted by organizational change
and were more than twice as likely to report chronic work stress.